26 november

If I had to choose one picture to represent Lutsk (and who would be asking this, by the way?), I might choose my living room window. Maybe this seems like an odd choice, especially over some distinctive landmark, but I probably spent more time looking at that window (well, technically through the window, but at it, too) than at anything else (barring the possible alternative choice of the inside of my eyelids, if you imagine that I could see them while I was sleeping).

The setup: It’s my living room, dining room, guest bedroom. The window is in three sections, with a big square in the middle (maybe 4’ by 4’? does that seem right?) and a rectangular section on each end.

The picture: Outside. A courtyard, flanked by Soviet apartment buildings, maybe ten stories high. Trees line the driveway alongside my building, then bare space in the middle. A basketball court, makeshift soccer field. Occasional playground equipment. Upon this, seasons. Passers-by. Sitters, squatters, gobnyky. Men eating sunflower seeds and spitting out the shells as if there is nothing else to do in the world. Rugs being beaten, momentarily free from the dirt that even now waits for them. Babies pushed in strollers, or maybe just strollers pushed, for all that I can see of the babies, bundled and zipped and packaged as they are. An old man stumbling in the snow, a young man stopping to grab his elbow, lead him a few feet until he is pushed away in a burst of alcoholic pride. The man or sometimes woman sitting on the crate and waiting for the glass bottles to be brought for recycling. The boy I met at the orphan’s picnic, flinging around in his wheelchair, around and faster than anyone, but still unbearable to see at times. All the bread under arms being brought home. All the single ladies, arm in arm with others of their kind, tottering on heels that couldn’t make sense in any weather. Late-night singers with confident voices and sympathetic sweethearts in distant towns. Lights winking out, one, two, until only the emergency lights are left on in the building across the way, dull and creaky in the tired night. In the event of an emergency, I am the only one awake.

The takeaway: Slightly separate, but involved. An observer, with more than a scientific interest. This window gave me literal and metaphorical perspective, an opportunity to reflect, to look up from what I was doing and to recognize the wider world.